A group of young musicians from Galway have secured an historic double at the Irish Youth Music Awards, winning the national competition for the second year in a row.
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Irish Youth Music Awards hosted its national day in Croke Park last Saturday. Team Galway were announced as the overall winning region for the second year in a row; a feat which has never been achieved before.
The group of young people from Youth Work Ireland Galway were represented by Liquid Space, who rocked the house and gave their all in a performance that had the crowd screaming for an encore at Croke Park and secured them the coveted first prize, one year after their fellow Tribesmen JANAJ won for Galway in 2016.
Liquid Space, along with all of the young musicians involved in Team Galway, will receive five days’ recording time in a studio in Dublin, a recording session in RTÉ 2FM’s legendary Studio 8, and their regional youth club will receive a full backline provided by Music Maker Dublin, to support the continuation and growth of the project. They will also produce an album of their own, released on physical CD with a professional design. The album will be digitally distributed worldwide through iTunes, Spotify and many more outlets. Last year, Team Galway recorded and released their IYMAs album which stormed the Irish compilation charts, entering at No 5.
This is the 10th year of the IYMAs programme, which brings together some of Ireland’s top music industry personnel and young musicians from around the country. All performers on the national day were chosen to represent their region at local live selection nights and were supported by a team comprising all other contestants from their region taking on individual music industry roles.
In addition to performing at Croke Park, young musicians had the opportunity to attend workshops and masterclasses in vocals, drums, song-writing, and bass, and attend panels led by music industry professionals including BIMM lecturers. They also has the opportunity to speak to 2fm representatives who were there on the day. 2fm is an official sponsor of the Irish Youth Music Awards and has been supporting the programme all year.
The Irish Youth Music Awards is an educational programme for young bands and musicians aged 12 to 19 and is an official Challenge Partner of Gaisce. Aimed at creating teamwork and friendship at local level, the project also provides first hand work experience in all areas associated with the music business such as PR, stage management, graphic design, and photography. The programme honours the most effective music projects run by groups of young people based on the entire project from the band, to the crew, to the promotion and approach to the competition.
